Growing Up America - by Susan Eckelmann Berghel & Sara Fieldston & Paul M Renfro (Paperback)

About the Book

"Growing Up America brings together new scholarship that considers the role of children and teenagers in shaping American political life during the decades following the Second World War. Growing Up America places young people-and their representations-at the center of key political trends, illuminating the dynamic and complex roles played by youth in the midcentury rights revolutions, in constructing and challenging cultural norms, and in navigating the vicissitudes of American foreign policy and diplomatic relations. The authors featured here reveal how young people have served as both political actors and subjects from the early Cold War through the late twentieth-century Age of Fracture. At the same time, Growing Up America contends that the politics of childhood and youth extends far beyond organized activism and the ballot box. By unveiling how science fairs, breakfast nooks, Boy Scout meetings, home economics classrooms, and correspondence functioned as political spaces, this anthology encourages a reassessment of the scope and nature of modern politics itself"--

Book Synopsis

Growing Up America brings together new scholarship that considers the role of children and teenagers in shaping American political life during the decades following the Second World War. Growing Up America places young people--and their representations--at the center of key political trends, illuminating the dynamic and complex roles played by youth in the midcentury rights revolutions, in constructing and challenging cultural norms, and in navigating the vicissitudes of American foreign policy and diplomatic relations.

The authors featured here reveal how young people have served as both political actors and subjects from the early Cold War through the late twentieth-century Age of Fracture. At the same time, Growing Up America contends that the politics of childhood and youth extends far beyond organized activism and the ballot box. By unveiling how science fairs, breakfast nooks, Boy Scout meetings, home economics classrooms, and correspondence functioned as political spaces, this anthology encourages a reassessment of the scope and nature of modern politics itself.

Review Quotes

Growing Up America: Youth and Politics since 1945 is an exciting collection that places children and youth at the center of post-1945 American politics. . . . The authors travel beyond traditional places of politics such as the ballot box or picket line, and by doing so uncover unique and inconspicuous but important ways in which children and youth influenced politics.--Megan Blair "The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth"

Even if its claim to reassess the scope and nature of modern politics is somewhat overplayed, the collection nonetheless contributes to Cold War studies by extending the subjects most often included within the field of childhood studies.--Jess Cotton "American Literary Review"

About the Author

Susan Eckelmann Berghel (Editor)
SUSAN ECKELMANN BERGHEL is an assistant professor of history and the director of Africana Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Sara Fieldston (Editor)
SARA FIELDSTON is an assistant professor of history at Seton Hall University.

Paul M. Renfro (Editor)
PAUL M. RENFRO is the Dean's Postdoctoral Scholar at Florida State University.